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◈ Primary hexagram: 17—Becoming. New form.

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Name from “Language of the Lines”

Becoming. New form.

Lines

Image created from the lines

Yang lines 4 and 5 show that we are not involving our identity in outer manifestation although lines 2 and 3 show that active manifestation continues. Our inner being is changing in this tao but not our identity. The hexagram is called “following”; we follow the tao in the same way that a floating stick will follow a stream, individual yet part of the flow.

Image created from the trigrams

The emerging energy is forceful (Chên) but this is stilled (Kên) by our unchanging identity (Sun). In our inner being there is a budding (Tui) of change. The influence that this tao has on us is an inner one, the flow from the emerging life force enters and becomes our being without identifying what it is—we go with it, accepting the circumstances of our life as they come to us.

The Chinese Oracle

> Following.

> Supreme success.

> Continuance in the way is needed.

> No error.

Comments

Continuing to follow the life force, the tao, our circumstances, may sometimes seem to be an error not asserting our individuality enough. Our situation is not, however, a haphazard affair, it is the choice of our inner need; to follow this rather than an identified desire brings about the supreme success of following our own particular pattern of growth and completion.

Manifestations

The pattern

The high is fed from below.

This is service,

undemanding and constant,

becoming an awakening.

For humans

Our energy from inner depths

supports the highest place,

the widest view.

When established and firm

there are new realizations.

In nature

Evolution is the devoted service

of life to a form.

It is form in service to life.

In forms we make

To serve, we follow.

We move towards that form,

becoming it.

Moving lines

Line 1 goes yin — life force shows more change

Line 6 being yin, we are following this emerging life force as it becomes more active.

> The basis of circumstance is changing.

> Correct continuance brings good fortune

> It is beneficial to go out of the gate to find associates.

> He gains merit.

Now there is energy where there was none, but this needs to be used in following (correct continuance). To follow our circumstances we need to go out to them, to follow with them (the associates).

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Line 2 goes yang — intuitive feeling less active

To follow the life force we need to feel it. Here we are feeling it less and we lack experience of it.

> He lets go the man

> and clings to the boy.

The boy is youth seeking identification and self-experience while the mature man does not need this. That we need it now shows that an inexperienced aspect is active in us and we should allow this experience while witnessing it with our mature aspect if we can. To follow it without witnessing becomes an indulgence.

❧

Line 3 goes yang — outer world changes less

When outer activity decreases in the tao of following, we do not follow what is on the outside, seeking experience, but follow what is inner, accumulated experience.

> He lets go the boy and follows the man.

> By continuing in this he gains what he needs.

What he needs is the wisdom to follow, not to seek experience.

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Line 4 goes yin — accepting the outer state more

Here identity is following outer activity and when we do this we do it for purposes, to obtain something we have identified.

> He is followed yet there is evil.

> If he has sincerity that is evident

> what error can there be?

Having purposes in the world is to get it to follow us, which is narrowing (evil), but if we constantly follow our circumstances as we see them we learn about the narrowness, and this is no error.

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Line 5 goes yin — more awareness of intuition

Intuition follows (feels) the emerging life force which is inactive here, so we are turning our following to the inner. As the inner is quiet we find ourselves remarkably close to being in the tao—following quite naturally by being part of it—where this feeling becomes very real.

> Sincerity, excellence, and good fortune.

❧

Line 6 goes yang — our inner being accepts less

Our inner being does not accept following. It may be his followers he does not accept or his own following of the tao.

> Sincerity firmly held. Bound fast.

> The king sacrifices on the western mountain.

Holding sincerely to changing circumstances as though bound fast to them, identification (the king) sacrifices itself in the mature state (the evening is the day matured, the mountain is the wide view of maturity). Whether followers or following is the subject here, identification as a mode of being is given up as a mature view is taken. Identification is not following but a form of owning.

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